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Alternate Take presents a new pitstop for fresh , unbiased and opinionated thoughts on cinema.
There will be recommendations of something we believe went under the radar, as we hope to elevate the discourse of film curiosity.Join us !
In our conversation with Anand Bansal, the cinematographer discusses why the prep stage of filmmaking is his favourite, figuring out an aesthetic goal with directors, battling shoot anxiety. Besides detailing his equation with the images he creates, he elaborates on designing a rulebook along with Achal Mishra for their collaborations and the conversations he had with Konkona Sen Sharma on approaching The Mirror.
Spanning an eclectic range of projects and with a characteristic grace and a searching tenderness, cinematographer Anand Bansal's work intimately maps out the passage of time and the shifts in families (Gamak Ghar, Gullak), as well as explores the dynamics of space and subjectivity with equal elan (The Mirror, LSD2).
The interview will be up on our page this weekend!
In our conversation with Ambiecka Pandit, the director breaks down her second short film, Under The Waters. She discusses the driving image of the swimming pool as a grey area, the interplay between affection and aggression, treading the fine line between ambiguity and obfuscation and building a deeply sensory, tactile experience.
Under the Waters is streaming on Mubi.
With just two short films, Ambiecka Pandit has cemented herself as a formidable voice. Her sophomore short, Under the Waters, is an exquisitely taut distillation of q***r adolescent desire, throbbing with erotic tension and featuring an unforgettably blazing performance from Nishant Bhavsar.
The interview will be available on our page this weekend!
In our conversation with Abhinav Jha (Gamak Ghar, Dhuin, Pokhar ke Dunu Paar), the actor talks about finding the blueprint of a character, his engagement in script work and the importance of having a fellow community of artists to lean on. He expands on applying a specific, distinguishing process for every scene, his evolving approach to auditions and effects of the Darbhanga New Wave's visibility on the region.
Abhinav Jha delivered two of 2023's best performances in Achal Mishra's quietly affecting Dhuin and Parth Saurabh's brilliantly incisive Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar. Garnering a Critics' Choice nomination for the former, he is poised as an actor on the rise.
Stay tuned for our conversation with this superbly promising young actor.
Kabir Mehta, co-director of the Netflix series, Class, talks of bringing a strong sense of design to the show, the importance of honing a skill for quick problem-solving on set, how the consistency of characterisation was maintained through the drawn-out shoot and details the rigorous logistics of mounting the show.
Kabir Mehta is a film director and writer. His feature film BUDDHA. MOV, was nominated for best debut film at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. He co-directed this year's Netflix series, Class, a giddyingly exuberant, flashy and wickedly self-aware excursion into the elite circles of Delhi.
The video will be up tomorrow on our Facebook and Instagram page.
The Fame Game actor Lakshvir Saran tells us why his utmost priority is to catch the silences and state of being of his character correctly, the dangers of pre empting and resisting stepping in with pre conceived ideas. He talks of the aid his theatre training gave him while shooting, and emphasizes the sanctity of inhabiting the truth of the moment. He also lets us in on his relationship with attention, fame, why he doesn't take any of it seriously, how Mintgumri has been his most rewarding experience and shares his purely craft centric philosophies.
Lakshvir Saran first rose to attention with his performance in Ivan Ayr's Meel Patthar, which garnered him a critics choice nomination. Since then, he has appeared on the second season of the Prime series Unpaused and Aakash Chhabra's short film, Mintgumri, a quietly affecting snapshot of care and its attendant internal turmoil, that played at the Dharamshala International Film Festival 2022. In the recently released Netflix series The Fame Game, his performance has been singled out for considerable praise, for portraying with wrenching fragility and startling openness a young man grappling with his sexuality, consequent guilt and the burden of living a lie.
The video will be up tomorrow on our Facebook and Instagram page.
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐ญ๐๐ ๐จ๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ข ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฆ
- ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ก๐ฎ๐ฅ ๐๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ญ๐
Lijomol Jose as Sengani shines through in a star-driven slyly take on the class divide, justice and politics.
It doesnโt happen very often when a film tackles issues that are plaguing our society in a very unapologetic manner that it lays bare all its cards in the very first scene and what you know, itโs just the start.
The nearly three-hour film begins with the headcount of prisoners leaving that day, being asked which caste they belong to and police separate the ones of โ Koravar, Ottar and Irular tribes โ possibly to be charged with some other made-up cases, while others are let go of.
Then and there the director lets you know, what we are in for even though it was just the tip of the iceberg.
The film with a genius title is based on the true incident that took place in 1993. Falsely accused in a theft case, a man named Rajankannu of the Irular tribe was tortured to death in custody and his wife came to the lawyer for help. It ended up being a landmark case in the history of Tamil Nadu state as it was habeas corpus heard in the High Court.
In an era where education about BLM (Black Lives Matter) is becoming as important as breathing and eating and in the era of ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), Jai Bhim is a pivotal cog in the wheel of todayโs reality.
Since itโs inspired by a true incident, the centre figure is taken by the former advocate and justice K Chandru, who was very active in student politics and an important member of the Left movement.
Naturally, Suriya as Chandru gets the bulk of screen time and is the saviour for Sengeni (Lijomol Jose), who gives her everything to get the truth out.
Chandru in Jai Bhim is introduced with a sequence where he is leading a protest at a police station against police brutality and asking for the arrest of one of the cops and hence justice. Chandru is presented as a hero, and from the first scene you know he will win the case and he will get the job done, the only question was how.
The subject here was the cause and the pregnant tribal womanโs fight, courage but it slowly turns into a fight of that woman led by the Good Samaritan.
When he gets a breakthrough, the background score lets us know, he is a big deal. The judges, the prosecutor, the victim everyone seems to be indebted to him from some past deed.
This was one of the big reasons why I had reservations with movies such as Pink and Article 15 wherein the former the deep baritone and towering figure of Amitabh Bachchan enters and the story becomes about him fighting the case and not the case and the latter where it is about the high-class police officer and not the three dead Dalit girls (saviour complex).
Yes, the star, the saviour is required to make the audience believe that he can do it, he is trustworthy if that person is at the helm, he will be able to get to the root of the cause and deliver justice but it almost feels like hero worship here.
The camera angles, the score takes you away from the gravity of the situation as 28 minutes before his entry, Tha Se Gnanavel is successful in showing how tribal communities are exploited and how the rich caste member treat them as untouchables.
The film is about the systematic and normalised oppression against the unprivileged. The framing, the blaming and the accusation and the brutality in custody that follows in the grab of interrogation. Jai Bhim does not just tell you how common it is, it also tells you how deep it runs and so many hierarchies it goes through without any objection.
It was easy for the minister to make a scapegoat of Rajakannu (K Manikandan), who visited his house a few days ago to catch a snake. The senior police officer is under immense pressure from the minister and it just flows through the ranks and the ones handling the case go on outright hooliganism.
The one suffering from all this is Rajakannu and his wife, with one child and another on the way. Denied basic human rights and identity, Sengeniโs dream of living in a house made of bricks, not the ones with thatched rooftops, who canโt stand an overnight rain.
The odds are stacked against her in every way and form. She is alone as Rajakannu went outstation to earn a living when the accusation is made. She pleads, yells, gets tortured till the search for her husband comes to an end.
The screenplay naturally makes you root for her and could/should have been the ideal protagonist but it wasnโt to be. It is as emotional a performance as it is physical. She roams around with her daughter Alli and the unborn child, asking for help, to let her know what is happening.
It is a gut-wrenching act because you are witness to the absolute disturbing torture which her husband, Rajakannuโs nephew and sister are going through and she is helpless. She is howling, crying and almost dies inside seeing her husband getting dragged into the station and the inhumane treatment.
Like Mythra (Vijayan), the lawyerโs role should have been restricted to helping in her rebirth, the catalyst to help her dream and believe that the monsters can be put to their place. However, the latter becomes the driving force, which is unfortunateโฆ
Sengeni has a beautiful character arc as the story progresses, the tribal character has a supposed โmass sceneโ where the policemen are pleading her to sit in the jeep and not create a scene as the orders are from higher authority. She has started believing, she knows, now the ball is in her court. Itโs a magnificent scene and equally well-performed.
She is vulnerable yet brave because she knows if she gives up, the atrocities are only going to line up furthermore. The anger, the pain are felt and Lijomol embodies all of that.
Sengani is the protagonist of this story, the cause and the film should have had as ultimately it is he, who wins it for her and not her win, as it should have been.
๐พ๐ค๐ก๐ค๐ฃ๐๐๐ก๐๐จ๐ข ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐ ๐๐ฃ ๐พ๐๐ฃ๐๐ข๐: ๐๐ค๐ค๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ฉ ๐๐๐ก๐ก๐๐ฃ๐๐ช๐ซ๐โ๐จ ๐ฟ๐ช๐ฃ๐: ๐๐๐ง๐ฉ ๐๐ฃ๐
- ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฉ ๐๐๐
Frank Herbertโs 1965 novel Dune is often regarded to be a pioneering science-fiction novel of the 20th century. After a shelved attempt and a shoddy adaptation by David Lynch, Denis Villeneuveโs film finally does justice to Herbertโs massive world-building ability.
Like most stories that transcend generations to remain loved, Dune can also be read in different ways. But as its cinematic adaptation ran in front of my eyes, I found a clear, deliberate theme of colonialism that seems integral to the idea of the story. But more than that, I found the film - made in 2021 - to be catering to the colonial and not the colonized, making it a questionable film politically (at least as it stands at the end of part one).
A lot of the film is invested in exposition, and yet the narrative continues to be riddled with ideas, phrases and allegiance lines that remain confusing. To sum it in short, the story is about two beings - Atreides, who hold control over Arrakis, a desert planet that is home to the local tribe Fremen.
What interests the Atreides in Arrakis is the vegetation of a special spice in this desert-land that helps in intergalactic travel. This means that a part of Atreides population in the desert world continues to dig in search of these spices, until a creature called desert-worm is tantalized by the rhythmic sound of machines to launch an attack.
It is a classic colonial versus colonized narrative, the kind we have seen in a film like Avatar years ago. The problem, though, behind the visual extravagance, Villeneuveโs knack for bigger-than-humans storytelling, and Hans Zimmerโs fantastic score, is that the film (not going into the novel) has a protagonist who is a colonizer. Paul (Chalamet) is a white man in a country that is not his to begin with.
The narrative, in trying to be authentic to the novel, seems to forget that 1965 was still a time when the idea of white manโs burden was as ripe as the brewing thought of white manโs transformation. The latter was a more liberal idea of looking at colonialism, a more comfortable gaze than the more criticized former.
But in Dune we are given a narrative dominated by white people, and the natives - the blue-eyed Fremen - are only given a compromised screen presence. This goes deeper, of course. It is a problem with previous Villeneuve films, too. His films are quite easily on the side of the white majority, probably the reason why he is so successful.
Arrival was as much about showing China as the wrathful, impatient beast against the gentle, helpful aliens as it was about a woman - a white woman - and a white man being calm, and composed, trying to find humanity in those alien beings, a comment on how there were some โgoodโ whites who always saw the human in the โotherโ.
With Dune, the theme of colonialism is too obvious, and the filmโs white-centric politics too easily visible. The second part promises more of Fremen, and Paulโs transition into a life of Arrakis, but the question remains. Why? Why are we still paying service to a plot where a bland, white man is our protagonist when far more interesting characters are around? And more urgently, why canโt we tinker with perspective and choice of protagonists in adapting a work of literature? Why?
Brandon, who plays Arjie in Deepa Mehta's Funny Boy, talks about how differently he processed the similar emotions and thoughts which the 17-year-old Arjie experiences and how the film became an act of letting go of his unresolved conflicts. He also elaborates on using privilege, the ambiguity over what constitutes Sri Lankan nationhood and identity, how certain modes of marginalisation of minority communities the film depicts are reiterating in eerily similar fashion today, how the nation constructs the Other. He also opens up on the sheer terror that accompanies setting a radical precedent with the unabashed q***r play he acted in.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this interview here :
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XJJCCJW9g8sEQXpxG1iCo?si=oqsKyCDtRSuEaMSxy9mUdg
๐ .
Netflix
Brandon Ingram is an actor and author, based in Colombo. He has been working in theatre since 2006; 2020 marked his film debut as he played Arjie in Deepa Mehta's Funny Boy in a performance full of a gentle slow bloom. In our conversation with him, we try unpack his association with Funny Boy and diverse assortment of interests and multi field roles across the years , all fuelled and bound by his singular interest in storytelling.
The video will be up tomorrow on our Facebook and Instagram page. The podcast will also be available tomorrow on all major podcast streaming platforms!
Rehan lets us in on how Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry's workshops for Deepa Mehta's film Funny Boy panned out, the spellbinding effect of Seema Biswas, how the film marks many firsts, its urgent topicality even three decades later post the book release, and finally elaborates on the accessibility issues of Sri Lanka cinema.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this interview here :
https://open.spotify.com/episode/52k19FxCW2fSMjIqzGzkW8?si=RksU1lPRTnSVsrMDanivaQ&utm_source=copy-link
๐
Rehan Mudannayake is a Sri Lankan actor and director who made his mark as the charismatic and charming Shehan in Deepa Mehta's 2020 film Funny Boy. His suave, insouciantly confident presence in the film happens to be his first acting gig. He talks to us about preparation, reception, key touch points the film sparks , the peripheral conversation, influences, and contemporary Sri Lankan cinema.
The video will be up tomorrow on our Facebook and Instagram page. The podcast will also be available tomorrow on all major podcast streaming platforms!
In a brief chat, Bhaskar Hazarika lets us in on the camera trickeries in Kothanodi, the hiccups of shooting his debut in Majuli, emphasizing his working solely in the story's interests, keeping subtext secondary. Among other things, he explains how the audience manipulation was achieved in Aamis, why he did weigh ahead on how much he could provoke, and insists on viewers taking more responsibility for the health of indie films.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this interview here : https://open.spotify.com/episode/3hiR3Swp8RGJbEpaQIW0BG?si=lvRxPkupSXGA6z9dEeTDNA&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1
WE ARE BACK!
Bhaskar Hazarika is a screenwriter and filmmaker. Exploring various facets of motherhood and starring Seema Biswas and Adil Hussain among others, his debut feature Kothanodi (2015) drew from a compendium of Assamese folk tales while his second Aamis (2019), a Tribeca selection, is an entrancing tale of forbidden impulses. Originally a MovieSaints release, Aamis is also now on Sony Liv.
The video will be up tomorrow on our Facebook and Instagram page. The podcast will also be available tomorrow on all major podcast streaming platforms!
Don Palathara explains why he doesn't necessarily view his films, Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam and Everything is Cinema as companion pieces, how he ensured a fluidity of camera in sync with the car in the former and explored the ways in which politics of language is geared for personal agendas. He elaborates on his resisting all forms of politically correct representations, the songs that tail the recent three films, the production and reception aspects, among other things.
Link to the podcast version can be found on this link : https://www.flowcode.com/page/alternatetake
Apologies for the not-so-great audio.
Thanks Dipankan Bandopadhyay for the technical help.
Time stamps in comments below.
Be it 1956 Central Travancore, a fable on the oral tradition of storytelling that takes otherworldly leaps, or both Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam and Everything is Cinema which strip bare latent tensions within relationships, Don Palathara's cinema resists easy categorisation. His films have travelled to Moscow and Rotterdam and are presently streaming on Mubi. We chatted with him about his three most recent films, tracing the themes, development and techniques in them.
The interview will be out tomorrow on our Facebook, Instagram and Spotify pages.
(We are temporarily back from our hiatus.)
Ivan Ayr-directed film Milestone actor Lakshvir Saran talks to us about the workshops that gave him a clear idea of the director Ivan's perspective, decoding and inhabiting the lived-in experiences of the truck driving community, the gradual process of habituating himself with the cabin space. Saran elaborates on an actor's need to be humble and the film being a vanity check and also shares some anecdotes from his Venice film festival experience and getting to watch The Disciple with Chaitanya Tamhane.
Time Stamps in the comments below.
We had to temporarily interrupt our hiatus to talk loud about Soni director Ivan Ayr's exquisite second film Meel Partner (Milestone), streaming on Netflix, whose finely calibrated emotion and melancholy washes over the viewer hauntingly. We were joined by Lakshvir Saran, who plays the young intern , Paash, to the protagonist Ghalib (Suvinder Vicky); he talked about finding the rhythm and truth in his craft at detail.
Lakshvir Saran will next be seen in the upcoming Netflix series, Finding Anamika, co starring with Madhuri Dixit Nene, Suhasini Mulay, Sanjay Kapoor.
The interview will be out tomorrow evening on our Facebook , Instagram and Spotify pages.
๐ผ ๐พ๐ค๐ฃ๐๐ก๐ช๐๐ฃ๐๐ ๐ค๐ ๐พ๐ง๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐๐จ ๐๐ฉ ๐๐ง๐ค๐๐ช๐๐๐ง๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ 2021!
- Debanjan Dhar
From March-end, Goa will be animated with the hustle and bustle of some of the smartest, savviest produceorial creative minds in showbiz, thanks to the forthcoming ProducerLAND 2021(Learning and Network Development Program). This is a sui generis programme for South Asian producers that has been developed by India-based producer Celine Loop, along with international festival and sales strategist Tanja Meissner and French producer Marc Irmer. The programme is the first endeavor, admirable in its scale and ambition, of the Storiculture Company, which believes in 'Native for Global' outlook as it's mantra. The company is dedicated to fostering a network of film and content expertise and strives to burgeon South Asian stories and talent in the international market waters. Celine Loop, who has been involved with producing a string of Q's films (Gandu, Tasher Desh, Brahman Naman ) and who has been a sheer force behind independent international filmmaking for a decade, co founded Storiculture last year.
In a telephonic chat with Shreya Rawat, who's working with the media company based out of Goa, she enumerates the carefully mapped out process by which Storiculture designed ProducerLAND The company began thinking in terms of the subjects they wished to encompass and in terms of the journey a producer undertakes, from content development to IP exploration to working with writers/directors, legal framework to co production to raising finances to scheduling to sales and finally distribution and PR. They thought of experts who specialize in each respective field, conducted rigorous research on their available options, and proceeded to reach out to invite the guest faculty which is now a 40-odd eclectic, vibrant mix of producers, casting director, script and sales experts, legal consultants and significant studio bigwigs. The program has been in gestation since November 2020. Notable guest faculty include Guneet Monga, Nandini Shrikent among others.
Therefore, the programme becomes a confluence of creatives with diverse interests, converging in one space to rub shoulders with the other and perform an expectedly fascinating cross weave of learnings.
Structured as a 4-month learning and exposure programme, ProducerLAND will kick off with a 2 week residency in Goa, from March 22 onwards. This particular module will traverse the gamut of a project from early stages of development to marketing and release. There will be minute case studies of films (Rawat discloses examples like Rohena Gera's film Sir, Rubaiyat Hossain's Made in Bangladesh) series ( Sameer Nair , CEO of Applause Entertainment, will take a masterclass on Scam 1992),with an eye to global insight, audience affinity, pitch and Go-to-Market strategies, and achieving the best of post production. The highlighted masterclasses range from Bahubaali producer Shobu Yarlagadda's session on big scale production and challenges of multimodal IP exploitation, and Aditi Anand's ( of Little Red Car Films) talk on budgeting and financing. Vijay Venkataraman, director of post production at Netflix India, will take a masterclass as well.
The second and third modules will be online. The second, to be held in April, will provide participants customized mentorship opportunities, from areas of specialisation such as content development for episodic series, non fiction production and multi modal storytelling. In June, the third will require participants to deliver a project pitch to industry pundits.
The program will welcome 15 selected applicants residing in or from India,Pakistan,Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and is mostly intent on applicants with some prior producing credits, albeit it encourages arrant newbies too , contingent on their degree of active curiosity into producing that will be tested in selection process. Applications close on 15th February. Selected participants will also receive alumni access to international buyers, first look opportunities at projects, other workshops and seminars.
Shreya insists the program will also try to incorporate those who have been long term professionals in other fields (cinematographers, editors, et all) and are considering a career switch to producing; ProducerLand will serve as a fine launchpad for them too and will help them navigate their way around it.
Essentially, the program seeks to incubate and amplify rooted, stubbornly and purely local South Asian narratives, cultivate a consolidated community of talent, offer them a global edge and try pe***ng them at a broader market arena. The strategy and purpose is to disseminate these stories beyond the limited diaspora audiences, exporting them and tapping bigger markets and building artistic bridges which reaffirm our profoundly connected human experience and subjective truth that transcends geographical boundaries.
The landscape for telling and representing South Asian stories in global forums need to be more expansive, multicultural and open, and ProducerLAND is a decisive step in widening the space for such stories beyond the obligatory legroom that's usually reserved.
See you again later this year!
๐ฅ๐ฎ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ฑ ๐๐ถ ๐ง๐ฒ๐ต๐ฟ๐๐ถ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ฒ๐ - ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐๐บ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ณ๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐น๐ ๐ฑ๐๐ป๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ ๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐ฑ๐๐ ๐ด๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ณ, ๐น๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป ๐๐ถ๐๐ต ๐ต๐๐บ๐ผ๐๐ฟ.
- Anshul Gupta
Seema Pahwaโs directorial debut lays stress on the members in the family and what family really means at the time of the death of its patriarch
After days of giving some heartwarming performances and spending years in the industry across different mediums and formats of cinema and art of storytelling, the outstanding Seema Pahwa, finally gets to lay her hands on the Directorโs chair and let dictate the terms rather than being dictated, for once.
And she tackles death and the pain it leaves on the one who was staying with the person who has gone, what happens to her, who stayed 24*7 with him, by his side, taking care of him.
The film dabbles with the various emotional responses to a patriarchโs death within a family and how it makes a difference to one person, when someone else feels a dissimilar emotion regarding death.
Ramprasad Bhargava (Naseeruddin Shah), a music lover, after explaining the importance of โsurโ to neighbourโs kid, falls on the piano moments later. His family, which includes his six kids - four sons and two daughters - their spouses, their kids, his brother, his sister, his wifeโs brother and his wife, arrive the next day. This means 20-plus principal characters in a 100-minute film can be too much. However, Pahwa handles her story well, which provides justice to every single character and makes them stand out from each other, giving them a distinctive voice.
While Mamaji (Vineet Kumar) and Jijaji (Brijendra Kala) fight over who arrived first after receiving the bad news, the kids fight over to whom he was the dearest.
The spouses gang-up against the youngest sister-in-law, who went to Bombay to become an actor, and gets taunted by comments like โShe is an actress, will have to act like a good daughter-in-law in front of guestsโ, when she initiates to serve them tea.
While, Ammaji (Supriya Pathak), in one of the scenes of the film, vents out her frustration after seeing what all was happening in the house since her husbandโs death, when she is discussing the decision of which son she will stay with for the rest of her life, with her younger daughter Dhaani (Sarika Singh).
While Dhaani goes on ranting about the youngest daughter-in-law Seema (Konkona Sen Sharma) and her family, Ammaji feels loneliness even though everybody was around then. โAaj jab sab saath hain toh akelapan sa lag raha hai,โ she says.
In another great scene, Rani (Anubha Fatehpura), the elder daughter vents her frustration out against her mother, when everyone including Dhaani were going gaga about her, saying she didnโt let her do anything, complete her studies and married her off at the age of 16.
And, finally in one of the many funny scenes, Ramprasadโs wheel-chaired sister (Late Pushpa Joshi) and english-speaking elder brother (Rajendra Gupta) indulge in a banter involving laddoos about who will join their brother in heaven first.
This is the story of people, who we might have seen in our families, might have shared spaces, exchanged conversations with, might even have lived with some of them. The everyday-ness of the conversations, the milieu, the house the Bhargavas live in, it all feels familiar, lived-in and even though I as an audience havenโt seen or lived in that particular house, I could recognize those cramped spaces, the neighbourhood, where the hormonal grandson, Rahul (Vikrant Massey) finds a companion for himself for those few days, yes that kind of friend.
Through. Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi Pahwa also touches upon the need and importance of family. Why does one need a family, or need to have one? Most people give an answer that they are oneโs old-age investment, their kids and their families, their companions will help them to complete the circle, i.e., life, a bit easier. But what happens when just the two remain, and the rest of the family is not with you and they only arrive to discuss and fight about materialistic stuff, after one of themโs departure. These are some of the questions Pahwa raises in her directorial debut.
The film coasts along with saying some heavy stuff laden with excellent situational humour, which is why it doesnโt feel heavy or preachy at any point, and we are talking about life and death here. Pahwa keeps the tone somber and having one of the best ensembles in probably the recent few years of hindi cinema at her disposal, the film breezes through its runtime.
However, the only problem apart from a little scattered climax, I felt was that the greed of having some of the best actors in our country in one film lured Pahwa into getting all of them together, but she didnโt lay emphasis on their age.
Her real life husband, Manoj Pahwa, who plays the eldest son Gajraj is two years older than Supriya Pathak in real life, who plays the mother of those six children. That was the only thing that took the film and its viewers away from its otherwise real setting.
When the suspension of disbelief starts to creep in films like these, the viewers can sometimes get thrown off-guard, but Pahwaโs belief in the story and what she wanted to say through it helps you to sit through it, without much effort apart from going to a theatre in times like these.
Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi is playing in cinemas
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